Leibniz and Huayan Buddhism: Monads As Modified Li?
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Leibniz and Huayan Buddhism: Monads as Modified Li? Casey Rentmeester Finlandia University When the question is posed as to when Chinese thought influenced Western philosophy, people often turn to the philosophy of the German rationalist Christian Wolff, whose 1721 speech on the virtues of Confucianism led to his academic indictment and eventual ousting from the University of Halle in 1723. In his speech, Wolff lauds the Chinese for attaining virtues by natural revelation rather than appealing to Christian revelation, which made their accomplishments all the more impressive in his eyes (Fuchs 2006). According to Kanamori (1997), the audience of Wolff’s speech “criticized it as the product of atheistic thoughts because they thought that the speaker valued Chinese morality as highly as Christian morals, which were formulated by divine revelation” (p. 299). The worry, in other words, was that Wolff was corrupted by Chinese thought since the atheism of Confucianism may have influenced Wolff’s own views. Almost invariably, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s name is involved in conversations that question the Chinese influence on Western philosophy, but it is typically tempered by the standard scholarly interpretation of the Leibniz-China connection, which is that Leibniz respected Chinese thought but was not influenced by it. I will argue against this standard scholarly interpretation by showing how Leibniz could have been influenced by Chinese thought. In particular, I propose that Leibniz’s conception of monads, which is something that we only see after his engagement 36 with Chinese thought, may have been influenced by the Huayan Buddhist concept of li, which creeps into the Neo-Confucianism with which Leibniz had exposure. Should my argument be persuasive, this means that Chinese thought influenced the Western world sooner than has been previously believed. I. Leibniz’s Relationship with Chinese Thought It is well known that Leibniz was the first Western philosopher to seriously engage with Chinese thought. His studies of China began in 16671 and continued for the remainder of his life, which means his interest in China spanned almost half a century. In 1697, Leibniz wrote a letter to Electress Charlotte Sophia (commonly referred to as Sophia of Hanover) in which, as Merkel (1920) notes, he says that “I shall have to post a notice on my door: Bureau of Information for Chinese Knowledge” (p. 59), demonstrating his self-identified interest and expertise in China. The enduring interest Leibniz had with China has led scholars to question whether Leibniz’s own philosophy was influenced by Chinese thought, especially considering the similarities one finds between his philosophy and Chinese traditions, particularly regarding certain aspects of Neo-Confucianism. The standard interpretation is that Leibniz came upon his own philosophy independently of his study of Chinese thought. Though scholars have recognized a curious parallelism between Neo-Confucianism and Leibniz’s own philosophy (Rowbotham 1945), the typical position taken, as represented by Cook and Rosemont (1981) is that “the chronological evidence and an analysis of the Discourse [on Metaphysics] together weigh heavily against any claim that Leibniz drew inspiration from Chinese thought in general, or from Neo-Confucianism in 1 Rowbotham (1945) notes that Leibniz mentions that he was reading about Chinese philosophy in a letter to the Landgrave Ernst von Hessen Rheinfels in 1667. 37 particular, in developing his own philosophical views” (p. 262). This position is based on two claims. First, the general consensus is that Leibniz’s mature study of Chinese philosophy begins in 1689 (Cook & Rosemont 1981). And, second, all of the major aspects of Leibniz’s metaphysical system were fully developed in 1686 in his Discourse on Metaphysics. Benson Mates (1986), perhaps the most preeminent contemporary Leibniz scholar, expresses this standard view as follows: In general, if one compares the doctrines of the Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) with those of the Monadology (1714), one sees that during his last thirty years there was almost no change in any of them. In fact, I have yet to find a single basic metaphysical principle on which [Leibniz] changed his mind over time. (p. 8) Apparently sharing this standard interpretation of Leibniz, Cook and Rosemont (1981) argue that there is no way that Chinese thought influenced Leibniz’s metaphysics in the Discourse on Metaphysics. Their argument is as follows: The Discourse displays (a) a deep indebtedness to the Greeks and to Scholasticism, (b) a naiveté with respect to Chinese history and thought, (c) many mistakes and misunderstandings about that history and thought, (d) a subdued but nevertheless clear Christian and Western bias—all of which seem to tilt the scales decisively against any East-to-West metaphysical influence. (p. 262) According to this standard scholarly interpretation, since the Discourse represents Leibniz’s mature philosophical system and, since it was not only written before his serious engagement with Chinese thought but also shows a naiveté with respect to Chinese thought, it is clear that the similarities one finds between Leibniz’s philosophy and elements of Chinese thought are merely coincidental. Also, if 38 Leibniz didn’t change any of his views after writing the Discourse, then there is no possible way that Leibniz’s philosophy was at all influenced by Chinese thought in his later works such as the Monadology. In his influential four-volume Science and Civilization in China, Joseph Needham (1956) mentions that Leibniz may in fact have been influenced by Chinese thought. Needham states that Leibniz read Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, a work written by Jesuit missionaries who spent time in China meant to explain Chinese philosophy and religion, in 1687, the year it was published, which leads him to hypothesize that Leibniz’s mind was stimulated by Neo- Confucianism. David Mungello (1971), on the other hand, states that: The influence of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus upon Leibniz’s thought…must…be tempered by the fact that…the germs for the development of many of the key terms in Leibniz’s system—apart from monads, which were to await elaboration in the Monadology (1714)—were present prior to Leibniz’s reading of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus. (p. 4) Apart from a recent article by Yu Liu (2010), who argues that “Leibniz’s diligent study of the Confucian and neo-Confucian texts…cannot help but leave and indelible imprint on the development of his own ideas” (p. 169), the general consensus remains that Leibniz was certainly interested in Chinese thought but that his study of it did not have an influence on his own philosophical views. I will argue against the standard view that Leibniz was not influenced by China—as held by Cook, Rosemont, and Mungello—by showing that Leibniz’s metaphysical views change from the Discourse on Metaphysics of 1686 to his Monadology of 1714. In 1716, the year of his death, Leibniz finally set down his views on Chinese philosophy and religion systematically in a letter to Nicholas de Rémond, which is 39 now referred to as the Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese. In the letter, Leibniz indicates his knowledge of some Chinese concepts that align closely with the metaphysical outlook of the Monadology. Specifically, Leibniz indicates his knowledge of the Chinese concept of li, which is a Huayan Buddhist concept that is appropriated by the version of Neo-Confucianism studied by Leibniz. As Wing-Tsit Chan (1963) notes, the Huayan philosophy “is the most Chinese and has exercised the greatest influence on Neo-Confucian thought” (p. 406). Chan also notes that the Neo-Confucian concept of principle was derived through, if not from Huayan Buddhism. Therefore, when Leibniz was studying Neo-Confucianism, he was actually attaining some knowledge of Huayan Buddhism. In order to understand the Chinese influence on Leibniz’s thought, we need a basic understanding of the Huayan worldview. II. A Sketch of Huayan Buddhism The most famous image that Huayan Buddhists utilize in exemplifying the way in which things exist is the god Indra’s net. The Huayan master Fazang gives the following description of Indra’s net in his attempt to explain the cosmos: It is like the net of Indra which is entirely made up of jewels. Due to their brightness and transparence, they reflect each other. In each of the jewels, the images of all the other jewels are [completely] reflected. This is the case with any one of the jewels, and will remain forever so. Now, if we take a jewel in the southwestern direction and examine it, [we can see] that this one jewel can reflect simultaneously the images of all other jewels at once. It is so with the one jewel, and is also so with each of all the others. Since each of the jewels simultaneously reflects the images of all other jewels at once, it follows that this jewel in the southwestern direction also reflects all the 40 images of the jewels in each of the other jewels [at once]. It is so with this jewel, and is also so with all the others. Thus, the images multiply infinitely, and all these multiple infinite images are bright and clear inside this single jewel. The rest of the jewels can be understood in the same manner. (As cited in Liu 1982, p. 65) The first thing to note about Indra’s net is that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. Within this net, there are cast an infinite amount of jewels, each of which is unique and unrepeatable due to its distinctive perspective. Although each is unique, it is also true that each jewel is similar to all others in some way because each contains the reflection of all other jewels in the net, demonstrating that each jewel only exists as a relational entity.